never did a day’s blacksmithing in your life, I bid ye welcome, nevertheless. Ye look like an educated man. Well, ’twill be a pleasure and an honour for me to teach ye something more important than all ye’ve learned before—and that is, how to work.
“I see ye cam’ withoot baggage of any kind. Go ye now across to the store before it closes and draw yerself two blankets for yer bunk. By the time you’re back I’ll have our supper started and then we’ll proceed to get acqua’nted.”
“Tell me!” exploded Toppy, who could hold in no longer. “What kind of a man or beast is this Reivers? Why, I just saw him deliberately break a man’s leg out there in the yard! What kind of a place is this, anyhow—a penal colony?”
Campbell turned away and picked up a towel before replying.
“Reivers is a great man who worships after strange gods,” he said solemnly. “But you’ll have plenty of time to learn about that later. Go ye over to the store now without further waiting. Ye’ll find them closed if ye dally longer; and then ye’ll have a cold night, for there’s no blankets here for your bunk. Hustle, lad; we’ll talk about things after supper.”
Toppy obeyed cheerfully. It was growing dark now, and as he stepped out of the shop he saw the squaw lighting the lamps in the building across the street. Toppy crossed over and found the door open. Inside there was a small hallway with two doors, one labelled “Store,” the other “Office.” Toppy was about to enter the store, when he heard Miss Pearson’s voice in the office, and her first words, which came plainly through the partition, made him pause.
“Mr. Reivers,” she was saying in tones that she struggled to make firm, “you know that if I had known you were running this camp I would never have come here. You deceived me. You signed the name of Simmons to your letter. You knew that if you had signed your own name I would not be here. You tricked me.
“And you promised solemnly last Summer when I told you I never could care for you that you would never trouble me again. How could you do this? You’ve got the reputation among men of never breaking your word. Why couldn’t you—why couldn’t you keep your word with me—a woman?”
Toppy, playing the role of eavesdropper for the first time, scarcely breathed as he caught the full import of these words. Then Reivers began to speak, his deep voice rich with earnestness and feeling.
“I will—I am keeping my word to you, Helen,” he said. “I said I would not trouble you again; and I will not. It’s true that I did not let you know that I was running this camp; and I did it because I wanted you to have this job, and I knew you wouldn’t come if you knew I was here. You wouldn’t let me give you, or even loan you, the three hundred dollars necessary for your father’s operation.
“I know you, Helen, and I know that you haven’t had a happy day since you were told that your father would be a well man after an operation and you couldn’t find the money to pay for it. I knew you were going to work in hopes of earning it. I had this place to fill in the office here; I was authorised to pay as high as seventy-five dollars for a good bookkeeper. Naturally I thought of you.
“I knew there was no other place where you could earn seventy-five dollars a month, and save it. I knew you wouldn’t come if I wrote you over my own name. So I signed Simmons’ name, and you came. I said I would not trouble you any more, and I keep my word. The situation is this: you will be in charge of this office—if you stay; I am in charge of the camp. You will have little or nothing to do with me; I will manage so that you will need to see me only when absolutely necessary. Your living-rooms are in the rear of the office. I live in the stockade. Tilly, the squaw, will cook and wash for you, and do the hard work in the store. In four months you will have the three hundred dollars that you want for your father.
“I had much rather you would accept it from me as a loan on a simple business basis; but as you won’t, this is the next best thing. And you mustn’t feel that you are accepting any favour from me. On the contrary, you will, if you stay, be solving a big problem for me. I simply can not handle accounts. A strange bookkeeper could rob me and the company blind, and I’d never know it. I know you won’t do that; and I know that you’re efficient.
“That’s the situation. I am keeping my word; I will not trouble you. If you decide to accept, go in and take off your hat and coat and tell Tilly to prepare supper for you. She will obey your orders blindly; I have told her to. If you decide that you don’t want to stay, say the word and I will have one of the work-teams hooked up and you can go back to Rail Head to-night.
“But whichever you do, Helen, please remember that I have not broken—and never will break—my promise to you.”
Before Reivers had begun to speak Toppy had hated the man as a contemptible sneak guilty of lying to get the girl at his mercy. The end of the Manager’s speech left him bewildered. One couldn’t help wanting to believe every word that Reivers said, there were so much manliness and sincerity in his tone. On the other hand, Toppy had seen his face when he was handling the unfortunate Rosky, and the unashamed brute that had showed itself then did not fit with this remarkable speech. Then Toppy heard Reivers coming toward the door.
“I will leave you; you can make up your mind alone,” he said. “I’ve got to attend to one of the men who has been hurt. If you decide to go back to Rail Head, tell Tilly, and she’ll hunt me up and I’ll send a team over right away.”
He stepped briskly out in the hallway and saw Toppy standing with his hand on the door of the store.
“Oh, hello, there!” he called out cheerily. “Campbell tell you to draw your blankets? That’s the first step in the process of becoming a—guest at Hell Camp. Get a pair of XX; they’re the warmest.”
He passed swiftly out of the building.
“I say, Treplin,” he called back from a distance, “did you ever set a broken leg?”
“Never,” said Toppy.
“I’ll give you ‘Davis on Fractures’ to read up on,” said Reivers with a laugh. “I think I’ll appoint you M.D. to this camp. ‘Doctor Treplin.’ How would that be?”
His careless laughter came floating back as he made his way swiftly to the stockade.
For a moment Toppy stood irresolute. Then he did something that required more courage from him than anything he had done before in his life. He stepped boldly across the hallway and entered the office, closing the door behind him.
CHAPTER VI—“NICE BOY!”
“Miss Pearson!” Toppy spoke as he crossed the threshold; then he stopped short.
The girl was sitting in a big chair before a desk in the farther corner of the room. She was dressed just as she had been on the drive; she had not removed cap, coat or gloves since arriving. Her hands lay palms up in her lap, her square little shoulders sagged, and her face was pale and troubled. A tiny crease of worry had come between her wonderful blue eyes, and her gaze wandered uncertainly, as if seeking help in the face of a problem that had proved too hard for her to handle alone. At the sight of Toppy, instead of giving way to a look of relief, her troubled expression deepened. She started. She seemed even to shrink from him. The words froze in Toppy’s mouth and he stood stock-still.
“Don’t!” he groaned boyishly. “Please don’t look at me like that, Miss Pearson! I—I’m not that sort. I want to help you—if you need it. I heard what Reivers just said. I——What do you take me for, anyhow? A mucker who would force himself upon a lady?”
The anguish in his tone and in his honest, good-natured countenance was too real to be mistaken. He had cried out from the depths of a clean heart which had been stirred strangely, and the woman in the girl responded with quick sympathy. She looked at him with a look that would have aroused